Friday afternoon beers

In my first proper - i.e. full-time - job, which was at BAe in Weybridge, it was the accepted custom that of a Friday lunchtime, everyone would head to the pub. Despite the fact that there was an afternoon's work ahead of us, everyone would have a drink or two, and there was an extraordinary lack of concern about driving back to the office, afterwards.

Actually, our return to the office was largely governed by what time the managers departed the pub, so that those one or two drinks might become three or four if the management were enjoying themselves. On one memorable occasion, we were in the pub until 3pm, and on Friday we finished at four-fifteen. 

This practice carried on into the nineties,  although by the time I was at Bradford and Bingley, in the second half for the decade, I'd go out for a long run, instead. The fact I was shattered for the rest of the afternoon was masked by the phenomenon whereby everyone else was at their desk concentrating on not falling into that blissful sleep that follows a couple of pints at lunchtime.

It's one of my few regrets that pretty much everyone who works in the office with me now drives home after work, so the opportunities for a beer after work on a Friday are pretty much non-existent. And, anyway, usually I want to get back to Dan and Abi or down to the Minx's.

Today, though, I had to pop into school in the afternoon, I didn't have Dan and Abi, and the Minx and miniMinx were coming up to Kirkby Lonsdale for the evening. This, chums, was a recipe for an after work drink, albeit not with my workmates, regrettably. 

And so it was that at 5pm I was able to meet my good and longstanding chum, Chris, for a couple of beers in The Royal Barn. It was delightful.

(I had a little time to kill before five, so I took a long route 'round to the pub, walking through the rugby club and along the river, which was when I took this shot of Devil's Bridge.)

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Reading: I finished 'Set The Boy Free', which was excellent and, yes, would recommend. Now started Ben Aaronovitch's 'Rivers Of London', which was sent to me by Big Green Books. (I signed up to their scheme where they send you a book a month.)